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el, 
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1888, 257 (Mooney. 
civilized nation and not a horde of savages. As the island was never con- 
querd by the Romans the early geographers knew’ very little of the peo- 
ple or customs of the country, and Strabo’s statement might be more 
worthy of attention had he not followed it up with an assertion which 
even the worst Hibernophobe wil hardly credit. 
Tue Rounp TowErs—Royau BurIAL. 
Before leaving the ancient burial monuments it is necessary to speak of 
the round towers, concerning which there has been so much discussion. 
There ar nearly one hundred of these towers stil existing in Ireland in 
different degrees of preservation, the perfect specimens varying from 
seventy to one hundred and thirty feet in height and from eight to fifteen 
feet in diameter. Excepting in two or three instances the entrance is at a 
considerable distance above the ground, and each of the lower stories is 
lighted by a single window, while the uppermost story has four windows, 
facing the cardinal points. They have been assignd to every period from 
prehistoric antiquity down to the twelfth century, and their origin Las 
been ascribed to Druids, Danes and Christian saints, while different 
writers hav seen in them sun temples, phallic monuments, beacon towers, 
minarets, burial structures, belfries, depositories for sacred vessels, peni- 
tential cels, anchorite hermitages and baptisteries. With all these theo- 
ries, the balance of evidence is in favor of their remote pagan origin and 
connection with the ancient fire and sun worship of Ireland. Human 
skeletons, and sometimes cremated remains, hav been found interd within 
a number of those which hay been examined. In some instances the in- 
terment was evidently comparativly modern, a supposition renderd the 
more probable by the proximity of an old burying ground, but in at least 
one instance—that of the tower of Ardmore—the indications wer that 
the bodies had been laid to rest before the foundations of the tower had 
been completed. 
In 1841, “‘Mr. O’Dell, the proprietor of Ardmore, in the county of 
Waterford, intended to erect floors in the tower there, and explored the 
interior of the tower down to the foundation. With considerable difficulty 
he caused to be removed a vast accumulation of small stones, under which 
were layers of large masses of rock, and having reached as low down as 
within a few inches of the external foundation, it was deemed useless and 
dangerous to proceed any further, and in this opinion some members of 
the society who had witnessed what had been done, coincided. In this 
state of the proceedings a letter from Sir William Betham was forwarded 
to Mr. O'Dell, intimating that further exploration would be desirable, 
upon which the latter gentleman, at great peril, commenced the task 
again. He now found another series of large rocks so closely wedged 
together that it was difficult. to introduce any implement between them; 
after considerable labor these were also removed, and at length a perfectly 
smooth floor of mortar was reached, which he feared must be regarded as 
ane plus ultra ; but, still persevering, he removed the mortar, underneath 
